JP Morgan’s Dimon: ‘I’ll Defend Your Right To Buy a Bitcoin’

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JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon still doesn’t like Bitcoin—but he respects your decision to invest in it.

Wall Street’s top banker has been a long-critic of the cryptocurrency, claiming that the “true use case for it is criminals, drug traffickers, money laundering, tax avoidance.” Even today, at the Australian Financial Review business summit, the boss of America’s biggest bank continued to criticize the asset, according to Reuters.

But he added: “I don’t know what the Bitcoin itself is for, but I defend your right to smoke a cigarette, I’ll defend your right to buy a Bitcoin.”

He then returned to form, asking why governments put up with the cryptocurrency.

In January, Dimon said he would never talk about Bitcoin again—at least on CNBC. He has repeatedly bashed the biggest digital coin—and smaller virtual tokens—over the years.

Last year, he said he’d “close it down” if he were the government. “I’ve always been opposed to crypto, Bitcoin, et cetera,” he said.

He also called Bitcoin a “fraud” back in 2017, and criticized his own daughter because she bought some of the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Despite the Bitcoin criticism, Dimon’s bank uses blockchain technology with its payment system, JPM Coin.

The billionaire is a big fan of artificial intelligence, and has said the coming AI boom will mean “your children are going to live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology.”

At the conference today, Dimon reportedly added that he uses AI at home and at work—including to summarize books he doesn’t have time to read.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.